Posted by K on January 05, 2004 at 16:58:07:
In Reply to: Older Beginner posted by Howard Ashley on January 05, 2004 at 14:09:50:
You have everything ready, which young beginners don't have. A trained ear, a well reading eye, and the ability to imagine sound from music sheets (and to "intellectualise" your aural imaginations).
Whichever brass instrument you may end up choosing should provide you great potentials for music making.
However I find it very important, that you find the right teacher. One who really knows the deeper and more farsighted perspectives of the instrument chosen. Students with your prerequisites should not be taught after the same, often far too standardised, methods, which are used for students starting from zero.
A really good teacher soon will discover the technical areas, which come easy to you, and use them to catapult your instrumental development. And on the other hand, if you have weak points, you should use your general musical skills to work around these weaknesses.
A sample: If you are slow in developing range, you will be able to start in a community type band, as soon as you can cover one octave (preferably a bit more). Your reading abilities will let you transpose anything outside your range to put it inside that range. I have seen many amateurs short in basic musical training being unable to transpose octaves, because their only relation to any written note is its fingerings. And as some notes are fingered 1 in one octave and 4 in the next lower octave, such players see no relation between these notes. (these considerations especially apply for tubas).
If you are helped to launch from your technical strengths, you easily will get the motivation to work harder on your weaknesses.
Your posting opens up for the options of euphonium as well as tuba being relevant options. But which one matches you best physically? Which musical function appeals most to you? The euph crooning the pants off the elderly ladies or the tuba making their feet dance? (Just to be fair: both instruments can have other very relevant musical functions!)
Anyway you are welcome to download pedagogical stuff like my scale routines from my free download-groups. You can also find lots of easier ensemble stuff to train the co-ordination of your musical skills and your acquired skills on your chosen instrument. Almost all of the stuff is from the "other very relevant musical functions"-area.
Klaus Bjerre of Denmark
Retired teacher
Free music files in .pdf format:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMasterBBb/
(Approved membership required)
Index over brass instruments gallery and catalogue scans:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMasterPublicPhotosIII/files/
(Membership is open for all)